Pasajes porteños: a heartwarming break in the middle of the city

“From an urban point of view, they represent ruptures in the urban fabric that transform them into special corners of the city», Presents Paloma Garay Santalo, adviser to the Metropolitan Observatory of the Professional Council of Architecture and Urbanism (CPAU), questioned on the role of passages in the fabric of Buenos Aires. “They usually have a perspective and a horizon that gives us a different view when we walk them,” he continues.

Numerous passages in the city of Buenos Aires illustrate the above. And it would be unfair to mention each other as they all have their own charm and even a well-defined identity. It is not the same Passage of mercy -Three U-shaped blocks, from 1888, accessible from Bartolomé Miter at 1500- that the passage Antonino Ferrari, which crosses in an east-west direction the so-called English quarter of Caballito, a few meters from another Miter, this time Emilio.

However, all passages have some common features. “We recognize through the landscape and its morphology that certain particular elements given by the type of terrain and the width of the streets and sidewalks, generate a disturbance that causes the feeling of being in a place of shelter, of pause, that can even be associated with travel experiences or movie scenes. These are undoubtedly private urban spaces with a strong identity, ”Garay Santalo describes precisely.

The look of brokers It includes urban and architectural criteria and adds the commercial perspective. Diego Migliorisi, director of the homonymous real estate agency with activity in Palermo, Villa Crespo and Almagro, explains that when selling a property located in a passage, the brightness that the property will surely have stands out among the attributes, due to the low guaranteed limits and tranquility, as they are generally little frequented by vehicles and pedestrians.

“As they are PH, they have patios and terraces with the possibility of expansion. The big difference is the tranquility They offer precisely because of the little traffic there is. These are generally properties with two, three and four bedrooms, typologies very common in passages because they are old houses with height limits ”, says Migliorisi, pointing out that, due to these same characteristics, they are highly sought after properties. “They are like an oasis in the middle of the city because usually the passages are one, two or three blocks, with houses on the ground floor and two floors, although in some areas buildings have been built. Since the law of passages restricts the maximum height in the whole block they have managed to retain the charm that makes them unique, ”he explains.

For the architect Leticia Firpo, owner of the real estate that bears her name, with a strong activity in the southern part of the city, passages offer unique properties that as such, they have their followers: “In general, these are people who like reforms and who have the capacity to carry them through”, details the broker, which currently owns several properties in the Rivarola Passage, in the center of Buenos Aires, which is characterized by “twin” constructions on its two sidewalks: mirrored and identical facades in the French neoclassical style, thus recalling certain Parisian passages. Construction of the buildings that make up the passage began in 1924.

According to Firpo, the condition of the property and the results of the reforms affect the value of the property. For his part, he currently has for sale a four-room apartment of 161 square meters and “with all new facilities” in a building with central heating, oak and spruce floors, oak carpentry and paneling, entrance hall , living room, dining room, three bedrooms (one with en-suite bathroom and dressing room), bathroom, fitted kitchen, released at US $ 492,000.

At Izrastzoff Real Estate Company, they market a rental in the Passage to the convention, between Colegiales and Palermo, for 37,000 dollars per month; a sale in the Dellepiane -a few meters from the Teatro Colón- for US $ 108,000, and several rentals in the street Three sergeants to Bajo Buenos Aires, which can be considered as a passage even if it does not bear that name. “We had properties in the Passage Giuffra, Mason, in Sergeant Cabral, del Carmen and in Bolllini Passage, among others ”, adds Iuri Izrastzoff, director of the company.

The broker He once again underlines the silence of the environment, stressing that the passages do not go through the buses, a detail not minor in a city very affected by noise pollution like Buenos Aires. “Passages, wherever they are, have their own charm which refer to the urban fabric of European cities, less schematic than the grid initially defined for our city, ”adds the director of Izrastzoff. “There are customers who like it a lot, which can mean they pay comparatively higher value to be there,” he notes.

“Some passages have the particularity that their sidewalk is too narrow for two vehicles to pass, which contributes to the fact that they are not thus chosen for travel”, continues the marketer. “There are many paved and wooded passages it adds another differential to its charm “, he explains, before describing the customer:” Without relying on hard or quantitatively relevant data, we can deduce that a customer who favors a ticket ends up paying a little more to be there.

In the City, there are neighborhoods – or entire sub-neighborhoods – crossed by passages, as in the case of the above English Quarter of Caballito located between the streets Valle, Centenera, Emilio Miter and the avenue Pedro Goyena and its surroundings, which lose similar constructions in the neighboring blocks. Another phenomenon occurs between the current streets Ramón L. Falcón, Carhué, Cosquín and Ibarrola, in Liniers, in the centenary district of Las Mil Casitas, development of the former National Commission for Cheap Houses, a public institution created with the intention of providing housing solutions. These are notably dwellings with very specific characteristics: mainly settled on lots of 8.66 by 8.66 meters, passageways, expressly recorded in the plan, intended to optimize the land.

At the other end of Buenos Aires, in the area we know today as Barrio Parque, designed in 1912 by the landscape architect Carlos Thays, a neighborhood of curves, diagonals and lots of native vegetation is deploys with two sectors differentiated by the design of its streets on one side and the other of Figueroa Alcorta: the sector to the south was organized around a public square and the sector to the north had a radial plan with round block axis and a passage called Ombú. There are many of the more expensive properties in town.

The truth is that today as yesterday, for town planning, it is a great challenge to articulate the metropolitan scale and the particularities of each of its rooms, exactly what gives them an identity. “During the process of amending the new city code,” says Garay Santalo of CPAU, “there was a lot of debate about the regulations assigned to crossings. Faced with the proposal of a homogeneous city, there is no doubt that this type of piece highlights the value of diversity, ”he concludes.

For Ariel Champanier, president of Re / Max Premium, a real estate company operating in different districts of CABA, the passages constitute a small market. “There are some incredible passages and others that have little appeal, like everything in this city. A visit to Palermo is not the same as another in a less demanded area, ”he says.

“Buying in a passage can be an excellent investment or it can also backfire on buying in a place where subsequent resale is difficult, we are talking about a small market in town”, underlines Champanier.

In Re / Max Premium, where they have marketed properties in the passages of Palermo, Caballito and Mataderos, they claim that “for the selected audience that seeks them, they add value, but, in return, have less circulation in some cases make them more precarious. and that works against it ”.

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